A couple who enlisted the services of a jailed “cowboy builder” have described the living hell he put them through.

Lee Slocombe was handed a sentence of more than three-and-a-half years at Newport Crown Court on Friday after admitting three counts of fraud - having conned his victims out of £43,000.

Builder Slocombe, of Pontypridd, began working on properties but then asked for more and more money to complete the jobs.

But he never paid back the cash leaving families out of pocket – and with homes which needed extensive renovation.

Cowboy builder Lee Slocombe

Among his victims were Sheri Hall, 24, and James Gardner, 32, who hired Slocombe to carry out minor work at their home in Aberbeeg, Blaenau Gwent.

“Not living there at the time, it was hard to see what was going on,” said Sheri. “It looked like a lot of work had been done because he had ripped it to pieces.”

In fact Slocombe had left them without a staircase or radiators and when the pair returned to the house they found their floorboards lying in the back garden and had to negotiate a four-foot drop into rubble to get into the front door.

The 4ft drop inside the front door

In Newport Crown Court this week prosecutor Claire Pickthall described Slocombe as having told “barefaced lies” to his victims.

He would ask for more and more cash in order to complete the job, claiming in some instances the work was more complex than he had originally thought.

Ms Pickthall said: “The defendant kept saying to one victim that they had invested so much that if they didn’t continue they would lose everything.”

She said that Slocombe even asked for money towards his grandmother’s funeral.

In Aberbeeg, Sheri and James had paid the rogue builder around £14,000, before he disappeared for an entire month.

His excuse staggered the couple

“We couldn’t get hold of him,” said Sheri. “James sent text messages begging, saying ‘please, please, please where are you?’

“There was nothing he could do – he had no money left – the family had no money left because they had lent it to him.”

When Slocombe did eventually text back his excuse staggered the couple.

“He replied to say he didn’t have the money but would pay us back because he was expecting a lot of money from compensation because his testicle was cut off.”

The couple had no staircase

Sheri met other victims who had received similar excuses.

The 32-year-old, who has been handed a 43-month sentence, pleaded guilty to defrauding one family of £26,000, another of £13,450 and a third of £4,000.

In a statement read to the court Marie Lancaster, the wife of another victim, said: “Our once-happy carefree life has gone. We are left with a mountain of debt we will be struggling with for a very long time.”

For Sheri the ordeal was made more stressful because James, a police officer, was receiving treatment after a heroin addict with hepatitis C had spat in his face.

What do you do if someone runs off with your money?

Sheri said: “He wasn’t sure if he had HIV for a while. This drug makes you really, really ill because they’re trying to flush all the things out of your system.”

She added: “We just didn’t know what to do. What can you do if someone’s run off with all your money like that?

“The police aren’t going to put your house back together. He has gone to prison but at the time we wouldn’t have been able to live in that house. It was completely uninhabitable.”

It was then that they decided to call Cowboy Builders, the Channel 5 programme aimed at exposing rogues, who eventually restored their house.

But James is still paying back his relatives, left out of pocket by Slocombe.

Sheri and James are pleased with his sentence.

They think his prison sentence was “a really, really good result”.

Sheri added: “He doesn’t even show any remorse at all.

“I don’t think he could actually comprehend what he did to us. People like that almost think because it’s not a violent crime it’s not an assault, they seem to think of it as lesser crime.

“He’s the type of person who wouldn’t realise what damage it does.”

The couple’s say their hopes of eventually moving to Cardiff have been damaged by the encounter.